The present invention relates to vending machines which have the capability of providing more or less storage space for particular products to be vended depending upon the sales rates of those products. More particularly, the present invention relates to means for electronically programming the vending machine such that more or less storage space can be allocated to specific designated products by the simple expedient of coded inputs. This assignability of storage space for designated products also requires the electronic coordination of the vending mechanism with the storage space under the same constraints, such that once the storage space is assigned, only designated product will be dispensed from that storage space.
It is highly desirable in a vending machine to have the amount of each product stored in a ratio equivalent to its sales volume. This allows the maximum amount of time to elapse between the routine refillings of the product storage means. Ideally, each product selection would be one item away from soldout when the machine is refilled. A preferred system would be a vending machine where there are several more storage increments than there are product selections wherein the increments may be linked together for particular selections to provide a storage system that closely approximates the relative sales volume of each product. The storage relationship should also be easily altered at a future time, in the event that relative sales volumes between products change. A further desirable characteristic of such a vending system is to add or subtract the number of products offered (selections) to customize the vending system for each installed location. An example of this last feature would be to convert a nine selection vender to a seven selection vender, by eliminating two product selections that have very slow sales rates, and reallocate the storage increments to better serve the sales volume of the remaining seven products.
Space-to-sales vend rack mechanisms of the type generally described are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,455 of Philip B. Groover, issued Feb. 2, 1988 for INCREASED COLUMN/SELECTIVITY VENDER which is commonly assigned with the present application. The disclosure of that patent is incorporated by reference herein.
Presently, such devices as those in the Groover Patent require various selective manual interconnections of vending mechanisms with product selection buttons and product dispensing or storage columns in order that one or more storage columns may be assigned to a particular designated product. For example, a primary product may be designated such as a particular brand name or container size, and that product may be selected by, for example, an enlarged selection push button on the obverse face of the vender. Secondary products may be individually selected by other product selection buttons particularly assigned to designate such products. If it is desired for the primary product selection button to effect dispensing of a primary product from several storage compartments or columns of the vend mechanism, the vending machine attendant must open the machine and manually select, through switching and other interconnections, a control path from the primary product selection button to the vend mechanisms for all of the storage compartments associated with the primary product. This is sometimes a cumbersome and time consuming task and often requires a panel of toggle switches or the like which are subject to maintenance and other attendant ambient problems.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a quick and facile way in which to program a vender to assign one or more storage increments, such as product containing vertical columns, to a particular product selection button or control on the obverse face of the vending machine, such that, actuation of that product selection button will result in the dispensing of that product from the assigned storage increments until the supply is exhausted. Optimally this should be achieved with a minimum of mechanical manipulation and primarily by an electronic input.